UNCTAD 15 pre-event: High-level policy dialogue on South-South sharing of policy experiences for digital transformation

Let me extend a warm welcome to our distinguished panel and all the participants. We are very delighted to have you in this webinar.

COVID-19 has triggered a game-changing moment in which businesses and consumers have increasingly “gone digital”. But the pandemic has also exposed glaring disparities between the haves and have-nots, with almost half of the world still offline.

According to ITU, in developed countries 87 per cent of the population has internet access, while in developing countries this number stands at only 44 per cent. In many of the poorest countries, that number is less than 10 per cent. There is a real danger that those without Internet access or without digital literacy are left further behind.

In addition, the digital divide is not gender neutral. This gap is likely widening although many women entrepreneurs have demonstrated their ability to start, maintain or develop digital activities in this critical period.

Despite the uneven access, a lot of digital activities in developing countries have offered solutions to the disruptions related to the lockdown. This was the case in various fields, such as linking smallholder farmers to more lucrative formal urban commercial markets, or linking directly consumers and producers.

Countries with strong digital infrastructure have been able to manage the crisis differently and benefit from it. This brings to the forefront the urgency of digital transformation. Developing countries need to take advantage of the new technological paradigm to create economies that could offer their people better-paid jobs.

To make technology a force for good and sustainable development for all countries, we at UNCTAD argue that equity should be the moral compass guiding innovation. But equitable outcomes are only possible with the right policy choices of governments and technologists, and the extent to which inclusive innovation approaches are adopted.

Digital transformation can provide opportunities to countries not just to ‘recover faster’ but to ‘recover differently’ from the pandemic. Doing so will involve going beyond building connectivity, even if this is key, especially in remote areas. There is also a need to build broadband infrastructure, data infrastructure, software infrastructure, digital literacy at all levels - citizens, businesses, public authorities –, research and development, inter-ministerial coordination of actions, and reform in the field of digitalization. Demand and supply side constraints need to be addressed.

UNCTAD has been providing research, advocacy and technical support on these issues to many countries.

Our publications and technical assistance have highlighted the implications of rising digitalization for development at national level for national digital transformation policies. We have examined the related challenges for developing and least developed countries, and proposed ways forward, especially in our Digital Economy Report and the Trade and Development Report series. In fact, our next Digital Economy Report, which will be published at the end of this month, focuses on digital data and argues that these should be harnessed as a global public good.

A critical tool for assistance has been the “e-readiness assessments”. This tool supports developing countries to prepare their digital strategy and design digital transformation policies. We have conducted such studies for xxx countries.

UNCTAD worked with partners in Latin America and Africa, in countries as diverse as Colombia, Egypt and Mauritius, in designing their digital transformation policies to help create an effective Industry 4.0 ecosystem. These policies aim at improving both the policy measures and the governance structures, and are developed following a detailed assessment of the digitalization strategies in place and the main challenges faced by the country.

UNCTAD has recently launched a project in Barbados on economic diversification and resilience, in which digital transformation forms an important dimension. In small island developing states advancement of digital technologies and innovative business models can promote their economic diversification and enhance their economic resilience to respond better to future shocks.

We have also proposed several paths for South-South cooperation – such as a South-South Digital Cooperation Agenda for industrialization and regional integration. 

Through our project on ‘South-South Integration and the SDGs’, UNCTAD has shared successful policy experiences of China in five areas, namely macroeconomic and finance, industrial policy, trade policy, digital policy and debt sustainability, with three pilot countries: Ethiopia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. While successful policy experiences of countries like China cannot be simply replicated, they can provide important lessons for designing and implementing successful digital policies in other developing countries.

We are happy that today we have Ministers from India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka to share their key policies for digital transformation, particularly focusing on building data infrastructure and boosting digital innovations. The policy experiences of these countries can provide important ways forward for other developing countries in their digital transformation process.

To conclude, our responsibility is to mobilize the international community to have an inclusive global dialogue on all aspects of fast technological change and its impact on society, including addressing ethical and normative dimensions. The problem is that all countries are affected by technological change and digitalization, but not all have an equal voice in ensuring these changes will ultimately be a game-changer for their people’s lives. With this webinar, we want to contribute to giving more voice to the South and South-South cooperation.

Thank you for your attention.